


All Over You  Like a Coat of Paint

by MotherInLore



Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Alien Gender/Sexuality, Humor, I Don't Even Know, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Porn With Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 21:16:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13621833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherInLore/pseuds/MotherInLore
Summary: "Ethan is thebestLovecraftian goo-creature."But there are a few complications that go with that.





	1. You Guys Might Need to Know This Sometime

“All right, DeVries, your turn. Truth, or Dare?”

“Truth.” Ethan hunched a little and blinked behind his glasses. He'd finally switched out the round lenses for more mature-looking rectangular ones, and he'd grown up a little (very little, he was still like, five-four), but if he ever went into a bar he would definitely still get carded.

“So,” Magenta said, “Are you gay, or straight, or what?” Because Will and Layla were still disgusting together, and Warren and Neva Eisbjorn had their on again/off again thing, and she'd hooked up with most of the Sidekick's Union at one time or another, and Zach had a police dispatcher he kept flirting with over the comm lines whom he was going to get together with someday, whenever they both had a night off, but no one knew for sure about Ethan.

“Ten bucks says he's ace.” Warren had taken over most of the sofa and had his nose in a book, pretending to be above all Stupid Team-building Crap, but everyone knew better.

Ethan blushed a little. “Well, yeah. Kinda. Mostly. It's – I'm not sure there's a word for it?”

Layla reached over and patted his hand kindly. “You know, Ethan, most people aren't exactly one thing or another. That's why I hate labels so much. Do you want to talk about it?”

To Magenta's surprise, Ethan did. He took a deep breath. “Um, OK. You guys should know this anyway; it might be important sometime. Um. So you know how I got my powers, right?”

“Lab accident when your mom was preg, right?” It was another thing that made Ethan different from the rest of them – he was the only one who didn't have at least one super parent.

“Yeah. Well, I found out some more about that.” Ethan looked down at the floor. “I'd figured it was like, radioactive waste or something, y'know? But I finally tracked down the records, and it wasn't. It was biological. _Alien_ biology. Probably from Fungisporia. So mom was... infected, and I'm like half-and-half.”

“Someone remind me who's from Fungisporia?” Will whined. 

“Contact High,” Warren supplied from behind his book. “That green blob thing that shows up with The Miscellany sometimes.” And maybe the most formidable mind-control villain currently active. Contact High didn't hypnotize, didn't do spirit possession. But ze was _addictive._ Once Contact High got hold of someone, ze could always reach them again, and ze could manipulate their biochemistry directly. The tabloids were very fond of speculating on just how Contact High chose to reward the other members of The Miscellany when they completed a successful mission.

“Oh, shit.” Will winced, blinked, realized he'd put his foot in it again, and started flailing: “Sorry, Ethan, I mean, obviously you're not like that, I mean... you're not evil, obviously, to start with, and... um. Sorry, shutting up now.” 

Magenta rolled her eyes. Trust Will to say the wrong thing, every time. Ethan took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, then put them back on. Layla patted him on the back. Zach grabbed a handful of chips and munched on them, followed them with a swallow of Watermelon Zapp, and leaned back. “Call me a guy, but I still wanna know how the sex thing works. Like, you're not gay or straight, and you're not sure you're ace, you're just like, attracted to, I dunno, zorbs or something?”

“No.” Ethan leaned his head back and rolled his shoulders. Warren turned over on his side and set his book spine up on the floor, watching at them all. Layla patted Ethan's back again, and Magenta, moved by an instinct she wasn't going to look into too closely, grabbed one of his hands.

“OK,” said Ethan. “Um, so... with, with humans, like, your nerves are unevenly distributed. I mean, you've got more of them in your hands, and your lips, and... so on, and not so many in, say, your shins. So when you're... together with someone, you have, like, zones. For me, everything's evened out. When I kiss someone, it doesn't feel any different than someone shaking my hand, or, or patting my shoulder. But just, y'know, random touching maybe feels better to me than for most people?” He smiled shyly at Layla, who snatched her hand away and looked a little embarrassed. Magenta glared at her and squeezed his hand again. Ethan squeezed back. “So, that mostly adds up to ace, most of the time, I guess. Snuggles good, sexytimes meh.”

“Most of the time?” Magenta prompted.

Layla glared at her. “I think Ethan has more than fulfilled his obligation to answer your question, Magenta, and it's someone else's turn. Who do you wanna pick, Ethan?”

“Oh, shut it, Flower Child. We've had to listen to you and Will in the back of the Awesome-mobile often enough, you can handle someone else getting personal now and again.” But Magenta sighed anyway. “I guess you don't really have to answer if you don't want to, though,” she admitted to Ethan. 

But he squeezed her hand again and looked her straight in the eye, his own eyes huge and nearly black behind his glasses. “When I'm melted,” he said, directly to her, “my senses combine differently. I can feel _everything,_ in so much detail, and I barely have a pain reaction at all. I can smell- taste all kinds of things I can't in human shape. I can't directly mess with someone's neurotransmitters like Contact High does, but if I'm melted on someone who's into it, touching them all over, I can absorb some of what they're putting out. If I'm between two people...” His voice cracked a little. “That. That... is eve- even better.” 

Magenta huffed out a breath of her own, in synch with Ethan. Layla squeaked and bit her lip, looking down. Zach, eyes wide, grabbed the bowl of chips and held it in his lap, protectively, and Warren, visibly steaming, rose abruptly and clomped away toward the kitchen. Will hid his bright red face in his hands. “No offense, Ethan, but I don't think I want to know how you found that out.”

Magenta smiled. “ _I_ do.”

Ethan shook his head, smiling and blushing harder. “Actually, you really don't, because everything else about it was really, really creepy.” He looked up. “It happened that time I got captured by Mr. Cake and you guys teamed up with Niña Bruja and Angel to get me back, and that's all I want to say about it. Will. Truth or dare?”


	2. The One With the Smut In it.

Zach drummed his fingers restlessly against the concrete pillar he was tied to, those being the only parts of his body he could really move right now. He didn't like the looks of the minion who was guarding him. The guy wasn't all that big, not that that meant anything against Will, except that Will _wasn't here..._ But he had the strung-out look and the weird veiny facial markings that suggested he partook of the Supremacist's supply of black-market Upgrade Serum, and those dudes were hard to deal with. The serum deadened pain reactions and short-circuited self-preservation instincts. If someone tried to beat you to death with one of their own severed limbs, they were probably Upgraded. The other thing about vein-heads was they went crazy. Like, ranting crazy, not just reckless. This one was trying to monologue and doing an incoherent job of it even for a minion; something about the Might of Asgard, and how Zach would come around to a more reasonable point of view now that he'd been rescued from the lowlifes he'd been hanging out with. “Hey, Dude,” Zach had told him, “I may be blonde, but I'm not _that_ dumb.” 

Zach doubted that The Supremacist himself actually thought this was a viable plan. More likely they were trying to draw Will and everybody in. Or possibly they'd just grabbed him because he was the Communications guy. For most ops, Zach's mad multitasking skilzz, honed over more than a decade of video gaming, were more helpful than being able to light up the night. Especially when it was day. He stayed in the surveillance cubbyhole of the Awesome-mobile (a decommissioned and refitted Sky High school bus), tracked eight screens of live footage from everyone else's body-worn cameras plus the drones, three channels of radio traffic (the tac channel, the United Supers Dispatch channel, and City Emergency Services), and whatever he could pick up from the data feeds. He was totally boss at his job. Which he was not doing right now, because he was tied up in a basement lair guarded by racist vein-headed mooks. Faint vibrations through the pipes might be the sounds of traffic, or help coming, or a doomsday device. He had no way of knowing. He hummed to himself: a little ditty he'd composed last time they came up against The Supremacist, called “If You Won't Apologize for Being White, Will You at Least Apologize for Laurence Welk?”

“Aw, 'sall right,” said Vein-head Mook. “They're not gonna keep us down anymore. We're gonna be lit by the fires of Odin, my friend!” He rummaged in the pocket of his cargo pants and brought out a vial and a needle. _Please be planning to use that on yourself,_ Zach prayed silently. _Pleasepleaseplease_... Because as much as he didn't need a freshly-dosed vein-head anywhere within a thousand feet of him, that was still better than getting hit with the stuff himself. Upgrade wasn't as bad as whatever the hell Contact High did to zer minions for precipitating face-heel turns, but it was pretty bad. And Zach knew he was not the most strong-willed member of the Team of Awesome. “Gonna give it all back,” said the mook, walking toward him, “Everything they took from you.” _No, nonono._ Zach strained against the ropes, trying to get enough slack to dodge the needle – if he could get it to catch a fold of clothing – go into his skin instead of a vein, anything...

The mook's boot slipped on a puddle of bright orange goo that had oozed up from a grating in the floor. When he glanced down, the goo resolved itself into a compact black man in an orange supersuit, heaving up underfoot and tripping Vein-head over backward. The needle skittered across the floor. As Vein-head scrambled to his feet, Ethan (or, since he was in costume, Elixir,) pulled a small crow bar from his utility belt and pried up the grating far enough to allow a guinea pig to clamber out through the gap. The mook aimed a fist at the still kneeling Elixir and had to take a punch to the jaw as The Red Rodent took back her human shape and came up fighting, while Elixir tumbled away from the reaching mook. Rodent danced backwards from the Vein-head's swings, hands busy pulling yards of silk cloth from her mouth. It had taken Maj a solid six months to learn how to keep her guinea-pig cheek pouches active in human form, but it sure came in handy sometimes. She threw one weighted end of the silk across the room toward Elixir, who caught it and ran around the mook from the other side. It took them less than a minute to get the mook nearly immobilized, and Zach watched the show with the adoration of the recently saved. “ _Oh_ migod,” he breathed. “Thanks, dudes, I so totally owe you.”

He heard Eth- Elixir behind him, running his laser cutter over the ropes that bound Zach to the pillar. Red Rodent started plucking the ropes away from the front and braced him when he started to fall forward. “You all right there, Signal Flare?” She pressed both hands into his chest. The last of the ropes fell from Zach's knees and he stumbled away from the pillar. “Take it easy,” Red Rodent insisted. “Cops are here, Flying Fortress and Balefire have the big bad on the run, Greenwitch's working the comms. Are you hurt at all? Did they drug you?”

“Don't think so,” Zach muttered. Elixir popped up underneath his left arm, helping him balance as the circulation returned to his extremities. “The guy you took down was about to, though. I could _kiss_ you for showing up when you did.” 

Red Rodent looked at him sideways. “You mean that?” Zach nodded. Rodent smiled her feral smile. “How about my place, after debrief. All three of us.”

Zach considered this while he picked the door lock. Maybe it was just the whole saving-his-sorry-ass thing, but both his teammates had looked pretty good out there. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Yeah. I could go with that. Just... stay clear of my orifices, E. I mean-”

“Hey,” Ethan's voice sounded both gentle and amused. “Don't worry about it. I've told you before, I can taste through my skin when I'm melted, and I'm kinda picky about what I eat. Also? Not interested in being accidentally swallowed. Your orifices would be safe from me even if you hadn't said anything. I bet after the first ten minutes you'll forget I'm there at all.”

 

******

 

Magenta had redecorated her studio since the last time Zach had been in. Or rather, she'd pared down. All but one of the Tim Burton posters had come down off the lilac-colored walls, the cheap Dia de Los Muertos decorations had been replaced by a single cow skull, decoupaged in black lace and mounted over the edge of the loft, and a set of brightly-painted folk art lizards sitting on the white dresser next to the futon. All of which meant, when Zach had parked the Awesome-mobile, locked it down, and made his way to her door, there was nothing in the room to distract him from the sight of both his teammates, sitting on the futon, framed by the black lace curtains that hung from the loft and glowing – well, shining – in the light of the lamp. Both of them had skinned halfway out of their supersuits. Ethan held one of Maj's arms gently, her palm turned turned up, and was running one finger along her wrist and up toward her elbow. They looked up in tandem when Zach closed the door behind him, and Magenta smiled an invitation. “Come join us? Ethan's just inspecting the damage.” 

To Magenta's frustration, (to say nothing of the Mad Scientists she worked with on the problem,) she couldn't shift and keep her clothing with her unless said clothing was all natural fiber. Her supersuits (and she went through them fast) were silk/cotton jersey, with latex reinforcement where the rest of the gang had kevlar. She was nearly as quick and agile in human form as when shifted, but she almost never came back from a fight without at least a few new bruises and a case of road burn somewhere. Ethan spread his fingers out over a spot on Magenta's upper arm. “I can... hang on... to the worst ones,” he offered, “and keep them from getting bumped.”

“You said you taste everything you touch when you're melted. Wouldn't they taste like blood?” Zach was in civvies, except for the utility belt; he had a suit in the bus, but he didn't usually wear it for ops where he stayed on the comms. Now that the Supremacist's mooks had made the Awesome-mobile, though... not the time to think about work. He yanked his shirt over his head, wadded it up, and tossed it in the general direction of the skull-print laundry hamper. (Where did Maj _find_ these things?)

Ethan flushed. “I don't mind that one so much. I think sometimes part of me thinks I'm... supposed to be able to heal things like that. Except I don't know how. Or maybe I wasn't actually born with that ability but...”

“Hey,” Magenta said softly, and brushed a hand over Ethan's lips. “No angsting when we're all about to get laid, yeah?”

“Yeah, dude,” Zach settled himself on the futon just behind Ethan and pulled the smaller man up against his chest, running his fingers down Ethan's torso. Hairless, he thought vaguely. Zach wasn't exactly King Kong himself, but Ethan was smooth as... “And we're not 'forgetting you're here after ten minutes'. That's just wrong.”

“So wrong,” Magenta agreed, pulling herself in close enough to wrap an arm around both of them. She leaned her head into the hollow where Ethan's shoulder met Zach's.

“I won't be able to talk,” Ethan reminded them. “And you won't be able to hurt me. Well, maybe if you had, like, live wires or acid or something, but anyway. I like being... compressed, and I'll be picking up chemical signals from both of you. The better things are for you, the better they'll be for me. With... the first time I did this, I just lay across the other two like a blanket. Well, across and between, but the between layer was pretty thin and...”

“Your first time was in Mr. Cake's Shakin' Place, and I totally refuse to believe we can't do better.” Zach announced firmly. He shifted from stroking Ethan's chest to rubbing his thigh. “You've said you're not into orifices and really don't wanna get swallowed – _so_ don't blame you on that second one, dude – so I won't lick Maj anywhere you are. Anything else we need to know? Safe words?”

“Possum. Still.” Magenta said, pulling away from them both to shimmy the rest of the way out of her suit.

“Mine's anchovies. Still. Condoms still under the left corner of the mattress?”

Magenta nodded. “E? Safeword?”

“I won't be able to talk,” Ethan repeated patiently. “If something really goes wrong I'll coalesce.”

“Awesome.” Zach shed his jeans and threw them toward the hamper. Missed again. Maj rolled up onto her hands and knees and leaned over Ethan. “Want some help with that?” She grabbed a fistful of supersuit and tugged. 

Ethan shrugged. “Sure.” So Zach wrapped both arms around Ethan's chest and leaned backward while Maj finished peeling him out of his uniform, then crawled back up to put her hands on Zach's shoulders and push him backward onto the futon. Zach set a hand on the back of her head and began to pull her in for a kiss. Ethan melted. He was heavy, Zach noted with the part of his brain that was not occupied with the feel of Maj's silky hair in his fingers, the pressure of her mouth, the way she hooked a foot under one of his knees. (Mad multitasking skilzz. No matter what he was doing.) Ethan was heavy enough for Zach to feel the press of him where he pooled – flowed? the most thickly, and he was warm, and he was smooth in a way that didn't feel like water at all. Barely even felt wet. Zach ran his fingers through a patch of orange that was starting to spill onto the futon and felt a faint resistance before Ethan flowed around him – something like the cornstarch goop his mother made for her preschool class sometimes-don't-think-about-mom-right-now-jesus-Zach. Magenta threw her body sideways, pulling Zach with, and rolled her way underneath him, her hips landing in a pool of goo. Zach lay on top of her, bringing a knee up to press between her legs, ran a bladed hand along the edge of the spill – _Ethan. That was Ethan_ – to encourage it – him – to pull back toward them a little, stay with them. There was a very faint popping feeling as Ethan pulled parts of himself out from under Zach's fingernails when Zach pulled his hand away. Zach propped himself up on his arms a little and looked.

Maj wore the slightly witless expression she got when she was really turned on – Zach hadn't been with her for a couple of years before tonight and he still dreamed of that face sometimes – glazed eyes, mouth partly open. Her skin shone in the lamplight; one breast golden, the other one fiery orange, as was her belly, and tendrils around one leg.... Ethan had peeled away from Zach without his noticing and now wrapped Magenta like a second skin. Zach kissed the nipple of her golden breast and spread his entire hand over the orange one, squeezing. Magenta made a sort of creaking whimper. Did liquid Ethan shiver too, under Zach's hand? Or tighten very slightly, enlarging the embrace beyond Zach's reach? Maj ran fingernails up Zach's back, from tailbone to shoulder blades, then pulled him in with both arms. When she released him, a heavy, smooth tendril of Ethan stayed behind, having flowed up her arm and now over his shoulder and down his back, curving back around his ribs to rejoin itself-himself-whatever, in the hollow under Maj's breasts, both of them gold now, but framed in orange, an orange mask across her eyes, pressing them closed as she arched her back and wrapped herself around Zach's leg, starting to grind. Zach was getting so hard, now, pressed against Maj's orange belly, surrounded by both of them, but mostly Maj – Ethan was being careful about orifices.

“Condom,” Maj croaked through clenched teeth, and Zach rolled away to grope under the corner of the futon mattress. They were not his favorite form of birth control. But the pill didn't always work on shifters and an IUD could do real damage when she shrank, and besides, Zach was worked up enough now he might not last long without help. A little reduced sensation would actually be a plus.

Ethan was wrong, Zach thought later on. It took a lot more than ten minutes to forget he was there, and it didn't happen until Zach was too far gone to remember _he_ was there either. Ethan decided at the same time that Zach was right; he and Magenta were a lot better at this than Ethan's first partners, and he was going to remember their fingers running through the middle of him for a long time.


	3. The One With the Plot In It

**MISCELLANY DEFECTS**  
_Noted supervillain team requests asylum – claims brainwashing, coercion._

**LEAKED DOCUMENTS CONFIRM MISCELLANY/RUBELMARK CONNECTIONS**  
_International Research Giant provided funds to Villain team._

**Coming up on _Loud People With Opinions:_ The Miscellany – Heel-face, or Heel-FAKE?**

**I Was a Child Super-Soldier:** _Luz Markehe, formerly known as “Batboy,” opens up to SuperPeople about courage, friendship, and the shadowy program that forced her to do their dirty work._

Even with Will's family connections and Ethan's talent for in-depth research, the Team of Awesome wasn't high enough in the superhero hierarchy to get much in the way of inside information about The Miscellany's apparent reform. They stayed glued to the screens along with all the interested citizens, trying to parse out incomplete data and separate truth from lies. 

“Look there – in the group shot, next to the one like a turtle. Is that Lash?” 

“Figures he'd end up somewhere like that.” 

“So, what happened with Contact High, then? Did they manage to break the conditioning after all?” 

“What the hell is Cranston doing there? She looks like crap.” 

“Who?” 

“You remember, the hypno-telepath from the year after you guys. I used to call her Wednesday Addams.” 

“Maybe she's...” 

But Warren was on his phone. “Spooky, is that you on TNN?... What do you mean, _the_ clone? … Yeah, but... Look, do you know anything about... you're serious. OK, fine, just.... Friday. OK. Yeah. ….. _So_ much coffee. Bye.” He glared at the rest of them. “Don't ask.” 

They didn't ask. (Well, Layla tried, on Sunday, but she didn't get anywhere.) The (maybe) reformed villains showed up on every available media outlet for a time, and faded out of the public eye again. The Team of Awesome fought The Supremacist, The Eclectic Biddy, and the Spoonbender. Magenta and Ethan and all three of Ethan's cats got an apartment together; Magenta managed to make a lilac and orange color scheme work... sort of. Zach stayed over often but didn't try to get his name added to the lease. (“I've seen your fridge, Ivarsson,” Maj informed him, “and I am not doing that to myself.”) And then the second wave of media attention hit. 

“You guys need to listen to this,” Ethan insisted, queuing the podcast up on the Awsomemobile's speakers. 

_This is Ira Faience,_ the broadcast began, and a second voice chimed in: _And I'm Terri Ick – And this is All Things Overanalyzed. Here today with us in the studio are two of the pivotal figures in the escape of The Miscellany and the subsequent downfall of Rubelmark Incorporated: The superhero known as The Shade_ (“That's 'Shadow,' Dumbass,” Warren told the recording) _and Envoy Running Clam of Fungisporia, formerly known as the supervillain Contact High. Privilege to have you here today, folks..._

Faience and Ick knew how to untangle a story, and over the next hour, they outlined something like a clear chronology for the first time. Rubelmark Incorporated had had a secret program, training their own hand-picked team of supervillains. They chose the most vulnerable ones – mutants too visibly inhuman to blend into society, from places too poor to have many options. Or ones like Lash; marked by prior bad acts and anxious to have a place to fit in. They augmented their recruitment practices with experiments in cloning, memory duplication, telepathic mind-control. And then, by an unlucky coincidence, the first Envoy from Fungisporia to Earth had happened to make contact with a Rubelmark scientist. 

“The thing about Fungisporia,” The bubbling, gluey voice of the Envoy said, “is that the entire planetary biome shares a single intelligence. There is no predation, as you earthlings understand it, minimal competition, no miscommunications. Only a few sub-entities such as myself fully grok the concept of _otherness._ ” 

“Which means ze also had no concept of deliberate falsehood or deception,” The Shade – or the Shadow – added in her flat voice. “And if otherness is like Relativity for a Fungisporian, then ethics, the rules for governing interactions between separate beings, that's Quantum. And the concept of _consent_ is String Theory.” 

So the scientists at Rubelmark had been able to fool the Envoy Running Clam into following their agenda, which meant direct, biochemical control of their stable of superbeings. The Envoy had been only too happy to help. Ze had no reason to suspect the motives of zer partners, and was rewarded by the opportunity to explore so many earthlings from the only perspective that really mattered to a Fungisporian – the inside. But then Rubelmark had made a mistake. They had captured the Shade, (“Shadow,” Warren corrected through gritted teeth.) The Shade, resistant to psychological manipulation by the very nature of her powers, fought her captors at every step. When, as a last resort, they gave her to Envoy Running Clam, she argued and explained, trying to show zer how ze was being used, even as ze tried to sooth her into obedience with a steady input of neurotransmitters. (Here Ira Faience read a few exerpts from the book that The Envoy and Shade were promoting – transcripts of “therapy” sessions between Shade and the Envoy from leaked Rubelmark archives.) In the end, the Hero had triumphed, and she, the Envoy, and the entire Miscellany had plotted to win their freedom and take their jailors down. The Envoy and the rest of the group were, they assured their audience, entirely sincere in their regrets for previous actions and their desire to atone. They hoped their story would be an inspiration, etc. etc, if you had questions for our guests, please call or text _All Things Overanalyzed_ at... 

“Whoa. Head trip,” Zach announced. He shut off the speakers with a pop of static. 

Will scowled. “I saw Lash doing the whole sob story thing on _Dr. Bill_ the other day. I don't think he's any more reformed than he ever was.” 

“I'm imagining Fungisporia now,” Layla sighed wistfully, “Just think, a world where everyone perceives the Gaian spirit directly, and...” 

“What is it, E?” Magenta put her hand on her teammate's back. “What's bothering you?” She pulled him over a little and Layla squeezed in on the other side of the tiny bench seat in the Comm Cubby, looking concerned. 

Ethan took a deep breath. “I wish I could talk to zer.” 

“To Envoy Running Clam?” Magenta clarified. Ethan nodded, took a deep breath, wrung his hands. 

“I just – I don't want to get stuck in some sneaky supervillain plot, if that's what's going on. But I really wish I could do the kinds of things ze does. Ze was _healing_ zer team, not just fooling with their heads. And even if that's in the half the genetics I didn't get... If I could just choose my own viscosity, even! Running Clam can actually manipulate tools with zer pseudopodia. If I could do that, I could stretch like Lash does – I could flow and reach at the same time, I could... but I don't know how, and Clam's probably the only... entity here that could teach me.” Ethan shut his eyes, breathing harshly. <

Magenta and Layla both wrapped him in hugs, but it was Will who made the call. “Then we reach out,” he said. “We'll see if we can meet the Miscellany.” The others all nodded. 

**** 

The ex-villains were trying, Layla could tell, but they were creepy. Bat Babe (formerly Batboy – the people who'd nicknamed her hadn't ever gotten a close enough look to guess her sex correctly) twitched her immense ears and stared and chittered. Tortuga (his real name was Kevin, apparently) looked at them coldly with hooded eyes. Slaver had to work around the fangs. Lash greeted them with the deliriously happy smile that Warren associated with Jehova's Witnesses and babbled about how much it meant to him to have a family to belong to. The Shade - “Of course I remember you from Sky High, and please call me Margo” watched them all with owlish intensity: she was congenitally deaf, and for some reason her long psychic fight against Rubelmark had disabled her cochlear implant. She and Bat Babe (“Luz”) carried on an odd tandem dialogue, with Luz signing everything she could hear for Margo, and Margo translating aloud for voiceless Luz. All of them, still, had green, opalescent patches of skin on the insides of their arms, the visible mark of whatever it was Envoy Running Clam/Contact High had done with them. 

Margo and Luz tried to explain. “It's not really quite a hive mind; we all have our own thoughts, and we can't pick up on each other's – well, _I_ can sometimes, but I always could – but we all know where everyone is, how we're doing. We can disagree with each other, but we can't be enemies – we make it work because we have to. We need each other now.” Luz emphasized this by rubbing her furry head against Margo's shoulder. 

Envoy Running Clam expressed delight at a chance to meet with Ethan. “I believe we ssshould be able to coummunicate through meiosis,” ze puffed. Ze had shaped zerself into something like a giant bicycle horn: the sticky voice emitting from a trumpet-shaped appendage that grew from a round blob. The blob had vague folds in it that moved to approximate very basic human features: mouth, eyebrows, enough to form cartoonish facial expressions. “I have learnt a great deal about houman pssygological boundaries; we ssshould be capable of exchanging information withouut ssspilloverr of pffersssonalitiez.” 

Ethan gulped. “I'm willing to try,” he said, and made himself comfortable in an armchair in the Miscellany's common room. Envoy Running Clam engulfed one of Ethan's hands, and Ethan went still and silent. Magenta, worried, grabbed an ottoman and sat next to the armchair, holding his other hand. He squeezed it reassuringly but didn't look at her. She chewed nervously on a baby carrot, and then her fingernails. The other four kept talking to Margo and Luz. Warren got up and left at one point – still his default response whenever things got more intense than he wanted to handle. But he'd come back by the time Envoy Running Clam disengaged and Ethan stood up. “Thank you very much for all your help,” he told the blob. 

“An ahhhh-nor.” Envoy Running Clam assured him. “I haff learnt much fruuhm youu azz well.” 

Ethan straightened his shoulders. “Let's go, guys. We have some things to talk about.” 

***** 

At Ethan's suggestion, they held their meeting, not at anyone's Sanctum, but at the Paper Lantern, with everyone pulling in around the big banquette table in the corner and a couple of platters of appetizers (and one bowl of plain white rice for Will) in front of them. The place had only just opened, and the only other people there were staff – rolling napkins or taking to-go orders and reservations for later over the phone. Ethan sat in the middle of the circular bench, Magenta and Zach sitting next to him on one side, Layla and Will on the other, Warren on the other side of Will. They all sipped tea and picked at the food and waited, the others echoing Ethan's frown on their own faces in sympathy. Ethan sighed. 

“Well,” he said finally, “That was... less helpful than I'd hoped. Envoy Running Clam had all sorts of ideas, but... everything looks like a nail to a hammer, you know? Ze's natural state is being part of a planet-wide hivemind. So ze thinks I need symbionts.” 

“Figures.” Will poked holes in his rice with a chopstick. <

“Maybe ze's right, though,” Magenta suggested. “Maybe you get strength and control through contact. I've seen it, in our ops- you've gotten better since you acquired a couple of regular snuggle buddies.” She nudged Ethan's calf with her foot under the table.<

Ethan let his head droop. “Envoy Clam means more than that- a _lot_ more. The Miscellany are playing it down because, well, ex-villains, creep factor, but they are _glued._ Those patches in their arms? Those are just contact points. Every last one of them are, are _infected_ with the Envoy. If any of them ever have kids, those kids will have some Fungisporian DNA. Actually, Clam thinks ze's not the first Earth contact after all; there's something in the base genetic code of shifters and people like Lash, that – never mind. My point is, the kind of symbiosis Clam is talking about is a lot more than contact. And it's irreversible.” 

“Ooloi,” Warren muttered. 

“What?” 

“Ooloi,” he repeated, “I've been after you to read Octavia Butler for years, Popsicle, but now you really need to because apparently, you're an Ooloi.” He looked around at the others, rolled his eyes, and explained: “The ooloi were like, the hubs for a poly relationship with four other partners – they were the ones who combined the DNA and – well, it's sci-fi and it gets weird.” He waved a hand dismissively and went on. “But the contact thing: the ooloi's partners were basically addicted to their presence, and the ooloi did things like healing and... yeah. The biomechanics Butler made up are different, but the results sound very, very like what Ethan's describing.” 

“I'm not doing that to you g- to anyone,” Ethan insisted. “I already knew I do better when I've got a group around me – well, I've got one. You're a good team. I'm glad to be part of it, and I don't need more from you just so I can, like, ooze in new and exciting ways.” 

But Magenta was imagining a warm spot on the inside of her arm, a sense of being held even as she tightroped her way along cables in guinea-pig form or flipped through the air. And if shifter DNA was Fungisporian, maybe Ethan wasn't the only one whose abilities would benefit. “I don't know,” she said, “it might be worth it.” 

“Says the woman who's dating Zach and a part-time Lovecraftian goo-creature,” Will muttered, “Sorry, Ethan.” 

“Ethan is the _best_ Lovecraftian goo-creature.” Magenta stood up a little to glower at Will over the dishes on the table, and then smirked at Layla. “Maybe you two should borrow him sometime.” 

Layla giggled and turned red, and Will looked at her, a little pop-eyed, and Ethan slid under the table as much as he could manage while still in human shape. 

“Walk it back, dudes,” Zach interrupted. “Everyone's love-life is a totally separate thing to what Ethan was talking about.” He considered for a second and added, “I mean, it is, isn't it?” 

“Totally,” Ethan agreed quickly. “At least, in theory. The Miscellany – well, Rubelmark's program used sex hormones as a reward in their conditioning, so they have a really messed-up dynamic, but the actual symbiosis was – They literally injected like sixty mils of Running Clam into each of them. Like a vaccine. All sex stuff entirely optional. Which doesn't make it any less creepy, really, and like I said, there's no way to undo it and it changes you, so I'm not going to --” <

Warren set down his teacup on his plate with a clack. “I'm in,” he said. 


	4. Epilogue

Jo Williams-Stronghold could change her body to mimic any plant on earth. She grew barky armor over her torso when she suited up. She sprouted wings like giant maple seeds from her shoulders and flew. She grew bright orange flowers from her dark curling hair, and the scent of those flowers could speed healing or send a villain to sleep. Neither Will's nor Layla's parents ever quite understood where she got the dark hair from.

Eric Cho-Ivarsson was a lot shorter than his dad, and darker than his mom. He could shapeshift into an octopus, and even in human form he could make glowing orange bio-luminescent patterns on his skin...

Lane Cranston-Peace could transform herself into a being of pure blue-white elemental flame. Transformed, she could communicate telepathically with anyone she'd previously touched. A few people, she took hands with while her own burned, leaving electric blue marks behind. She wondered if she might be ooloi.

Ethan DeVries spent his life among his symbionts and children and died, eventually, the same way Latin did- slowly, gradually, diluted and transformed across generations and continents, leaving the world richer, and still there if one knew where to look.


End file.
